The refresh rate may also be changed, either at the same time or independently:

xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1024x768 --rate 75

Note that changes you make using xrandr only last through the current session. xrandr has a lot more capabilities - see man xrandr for details.

Adding undetected resolutions

Due to buggy hardware or drivers, your monitor's correct resolutions may not always be detected by xrandr. For example, the EDID data block queried from the monitor may be incorrect. However, we can add the desired resolutions to xrandr.

LXrandR

Troubleshooting

Resolution lower than expected

Try this first

If you video card is recognized but the resolution is lower than you expect, you may try this.

Background: ATI X1550 based video card and two LCD monitors DELL 2408(up to 1920x1200) and Samsung 206BW(up to 1680x1050). Upon first login after installation, the resolution default to 1152x864. xrandr does not list any resolution higher than 1152x864. You may want to try editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf, add a section about virtual screen, logout, login and see if this helps. If not then read on.

About the numbers: DELL on the left and Samsung on the right. So the virtual width is of sum of both LCD width 3600=1920+1680; Height then is figured as the max of them, which is max(1200,1050)=1200. If you put one LCD above the other, use this calculation instead: (max(width1, width2), height1+height2).

Use cvt/xrandr tool to add the highest mode the LCD can do

The actual order was different, as I tried to add new mode to one LCD at a time. Below is the combined/all-in-one quote

Using xrandr with VNC

If you are using a VNC server that supports xrandr you can change the vnc resolution on the fly by using "xrandr -s <width>x<height>". tigervnc is an example of a client that supports xrandr

Example:

xrandr -s 1920x1200

After you VNC in, if you open a console and type "xrandr" you will get a list of currently configured modes. Each of these modes can be activated with the xrandr -s option; however, if the mode you want does not exist in the list, you can add it by doing the following:

Example: Say I want to add 1024x600 (a common netbook resolution)

First run CVT to get the correct modeline for the resolution you want to add

Doing the above will give you the ability to change to 1024x600 by typing xrandr -s 1024x600, but it will only last for the current x session. To insure that you can use the newly added resolution each time you start vncserver, add the following to ~/.vnc/xstartup